With all the chatter about Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) running for president in 2016, I wonder how the birthers will explain that being born in Canada to a mother who was a U.S. citizen makes you a natural-born citizen, whereas being born in Hawai’i to a mother who was a U.S. citizen makes you ineligible to hold the office.
I’m sure they’ll come up with something.
HT to rubber hose.
I’m not going to be posting anything about Hillary Clinton running for president in 2016 until she actually says she is.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has come back to his original immigration stand after a week out there in the fringes.
Jeb Bush completed a whirlwind one-week journey on immigration on Sunday, praising a Senate proposal to grant eventual citizenship for undocumented immigrants after attacking the idea in a newly released book he co-authored that was itself a reversal of his past position.
Bush’s experimental turn as a border hawk was so quick you could blink and miss it.
He did all five Sunday talk shows (there are five now?) yesterday where he basically re-embraced a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. This was exactly a week after he’d flipped from his earlier position of no path… then sorta a path after his book came out (and contradicted his own writings)… and then back on the path yesterday.
So why the sudden reversal? Or why the original change in the first place? Who knows, but it accomplished the goal of getting his name out there. And to prove that he’s a player, he’s got the chutzpah to chastise the press for pestering him about running in 2016, comparing them to crack addicts. As if the question would never come up.
Another bon mot that he laid on the press: “I think history will be kind to George W. Bush.” Okay, who wants to hit that one out of the park?
Jeb Bush now says he’s in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, sorta.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday that he would support a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants “if you can craft that in law where you can have a path to citizenship where there isn’t an incentive for people to come illegally” — a position that puts him at odds with his new book, out today from Simon & Schuster.
That was after he had changed positions — going from supporting the idea to being against it — in the last few months… most notably since the November election when the GOP lost the Hispanic vote by wide margins. Now he’s disagreeing with his own book.
I guess he’s covering all the bases in case he has to run against Jeb Bush in the primaries.
These two headlines caught my attention:
Jeb Bush: No pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants
and
Jeb Bush: I won’t rule out 2016 White House run ‘but I won’t declare today’
They go together like salt and peter.
The first one is a set-up for the second, putting him squarely in the hard-right tent on immigration, a place that even his older brother wouldn’t go, and setting him apart from that other possible candidate from Florida, Sen. Marco Rubio (also known as The Waterboy) and a number of Republicans who don’t wear teabags on their head. It’s also a flip-flop from a view he held until recently, telling Charlie Rose in June 2012 that he supported a pathway to citizenship:
“You have to deal with this issue. You can’t ignore it,” he said during that interview. “And so, either a path to citizenship — which I would support and that does put me probably out of the mainstream of most conservatives — or a path to legalization, a path to residency of some kind.”
And as recently as January of this year he was sounding all nice and inclusive about immigration.
So why the change? Headline number two.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush won’t confirm he’s a candidate for the next presidential race, but he sounded like a White House hopeful Monday, declaring his party in need of leadership.
“I have a voice, I want to share my beliefs about how the conservative movement and the Republican party can regain its footing, because we’ve lost our way,” he told TODAY’s Matt Lauer.
Bush said he wouldn’t rule out a run in 2016, “but I won’t declare today either.”
Um, going on the Today show and not ruling it out pretty much means he’s declaring by omission, especially the part where he talked about the failure of Mitt Romney to — wait for it — “garner more support from Hispanic voters during the last election cycle.”
And we’re back to Headline number 1.
His approach to immigration now seems to be “love the sinner but hate the sin,” a philosophy that worked so well in the gay-rights debate and smacks of patronizing: we’re delighted to have you here to cut our grass, pick our lettuce, and do our laundry, but you can never truly be one of us even if you jump through all the hoops that we come up with to make it all but impossible for anyone but a very rich person with a good lawyer can get through.
If this is his idea of how to garner more support from Hispanic voters, a lot of whom care about immigration over many other issues, it needs some work.
On the other hand, it did get headlines, which at this stage of the game, is pretty much all a possible presidential campaign can hope for.
PS: Eric Loomis notes that this “is a sign that leading Republicans can be serious about winning the 2016 Republican nomination or they can be serious about winning the general election, but they can’t be serious about both.”
As I do every year on New Year’s Eve, I make predictions about the upcoming year. Let’s see how I did for 2012:
Barack Obama will narrowly win re-election against Mitt Romney. It will be a campaign of fear, loathing, excess, and outrage… and that’s just on the GOP side until the inevitable coronation of Mr. Romney. The amount of money to be spent on both sides will be enough to run several mid-sized countries. Re-election campaigns are, of course, a vote on the performance of the incumbent, and Mr. Obama will have to defend his record, but the Republicans have, by their own actions, inactions, and lurch to the right in response to their hatred of all things Obama, made the choice in the election pretty clear. The stated GOP agenda has been to deny Barack Obama a second term, but other than that, they have offered nothing of substance if they win the election. That’s not surprising; they never do. They live on bumper sticker slogans and ten-word answers — Repeal Obamacare; Ban Abortion; Deport the Brown People; No More Taxes; Kill the Queers — but they offer no solutions, unless you want to go back to revive the bold and new ideas from the administration of William McKinley. The campaign will resemble that of the one in 1948 where Harry Truman, coming back from dismal approval ratings, beat the patrician and automatonic Thomas E. Dewey. Mr. Truman ran against an intransigent and right-wing-whacky Republican Congress, and Mr. Obama has pretty much the same situation. It won’t be a landslide, but unless there’s a complete meltdown of the Obama campaign juggernaut, he’ll win and might even win back Congress for the Democrats. It will not be the end of the right-wingers by any means; if anything, the re-election of Barack Obama will drive them even further over the cliff, and we will find out that the level of lunacy is infinite.
As I noted shortly after the election in November, I nailed it. The only thing I missed on was the possibility of winning back the House, but the Democrats did gain seats.
The Supreme Court, by a vote of 5 to 4, will uphold the new healthcare law, and the California Prop 8 case will get on their docket for 2013.
Right on both counts.
Despite the best efforts of the Republicans, the economy will continue to improve, but at about the same pace as it currently is, meaning that by Election Day the unemployment rate will be around 8%. Consumer confidence will continue to grow, and while the housing market will still be soft, bigger ticket items like cars and appliances will start to sell; those old cars can’t run forever.
Right again, although I underestimated the strength of the auto market. They are having their best year in a long, long time.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker will be recalled, which will send a shiver through right-wing governors from Ohio and Michigan to Florida. As the thousands of people in the streets from Madison to Wall Street proved, you mess with the middle class at your peril, and that sleeping giant has been awakened.
Okay, I blew that one, and Rick Snyder in Michigan is making Scott Walker look like a liberal. But I think the backlash will continue, and he has to run for re-election in 2014.
Here in Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson (D) will win another term in a tight race against Rep. Connie Mack (R), and Rep. Allen West (R) will be tossed out on his ass by the good people of Broward County. Alan Grayson (D), who lost in 2010, will win back a seat in Congress, and this will send a strong message to the Florida Democrats that if they can find some good people to run for office, they can beat Rick Scott in 2014.
Nailed that one, too, but the strongest contender in the race against Mr. Scott is the newly-minted Democrat Charlie Crist. Hold your nose, Democrats; to quote E.J. Hornbeck in the film of Inherit the Wind, he may be rancid butter, but he’s on your side of the bread.
The Tigers will go all the way this year. They got very close this year, and there’s always next year.
They did make it all the way to the World Series, only to blow it in a four-game shut out. Argh.
We will lose the requisite number of celebrities and friends as life goes on. As I always say, it’s important to cherish them while they are with us.
This year seemed especially harsh, both with friends at work and at home, and names that have been part of our lives. Peace.
Personally, some things never change. I’ll go to the William Inge Festival in April — my 21st time — where we’ll honor David Henry Hwang. I’ll go to Stratford in July with my parents, and I’ll go back to work on Tuesday. I’ve done some tinkering with the Pontiac as it verges on becoming a certified antique, which happens when the 2013 models go on sale. I have no plans to move or change jobs, and the only momentous thing that will happen is that I turn 60 in September. Big whoop.
All true, and to celebrate the Big Six-Oh I threw a little party.
Okay, let’s move on to the predictions for 2013:
- President Obama moves into his second term with pretty much the same situation in Washington and Congress as he has had for the last two years, so nothing will really get done. The budget matters, including the fake drama of the Fiscal Cliff, will still be around in some form because it’s a lot easier to kick it down the road than actually do something, especially when you have a Republican Party that absolutely refuses to work with the president on anything at all. It has nothing to do with policy, deficits or debt, taxes or revenue. The reason is pretty simple: they don’t like him, and so like a kid in grade school who refuses to do his math homework because he hates the teacher, they refuse to budge. You can pick your excuses, ranging from his Spock-like demeanor to his refusal to suck up to the Villagers, but most of it comes down to the unspoken reason that dare not speak its name: he’s black. No one dares say that out loud, but get three beers in any Republican, and I’ll bet they’ll admit it by saying “He’s not one of us.” How many dog whistles do you need? A big tell was that in the last-minute budget negotiations, Mitch McConnell went to Vice President Joe Biden as the go-between the Congress and the president. Why? Because Mr. Biden was in the Senate and knows how to talk to them, and also because he’s the white guy. So we will have another year of gridlock, and the new Congress will make the one just concluded look good.
- The Supreme Court will rule the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Prop 8 are unconstitutional. It will be a very close vote, probably 5-4 on both cases, and they will narrowly rule on both cases, doing their best not to fling open the doors to marriage equality with a blanket ruling and leave the rest of it up to the states. But they will both go down. On the other hand, they will rule against Affirmative Action. I also think there will be some changes to the make-up of the Court with at least one retirement, either voluntary or by the hand of fate.
- Even if we went over the fiscal cliff or curb or speed-bump, the economy will continue to improve, with the unemployment rate going below 7% by Labor Day. I know this only because I know that our economy, like the water level in the Great Lakes, goes in cycles no matter what the hand of Wall Street or Washington does… unless they completely screw it up like the last time and make it even worse.
- After the extreme weather we saw in 2012, at long last we will move to do something about climate change or global warming or whatever it is fashionably called. It won’t be done by Congress, however; it will be because the people who make a living off the climate, such as agriculture and coastal enterprises such as fishing and tourism, will make it happen through their own efforts. (Yeah, I’m being extremely optimistic on this one. A year from now I will happily concede I blew it.)
- The extremism from the right that entertained us in 2012 will continue, albeit muted because 2013 isn’t an election year except in New Jersey, where Chris Christie will be re-elected and start his Howard Dean-like campaign for the presidency in 2016. The GOP will refuse to acknowledge they have a problem, but as 2014 looms and the wingers that were elected in 2010 face re-election, they will find themselves scrambling hard for candidates that can survive primary battles where the nutsery reigns and then win the general election. The only reason Governors Rick Scott of Florida, Rick Snyder of Michigan, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and John Kasich of Ohio will be re-elected in 2014 is if the Democrats don’t move in for the kill.
- I’ve given up predicting the Tigers’ future this year. Surprise me, boys.
- We will lose the requisite number of celebrities and friends as life goes on. As I always say, it’s important to cherish them while they are with us.
- Personally, this year looks good on a couple of fronts. The Pontiac is due back from the body shop this week, and I have formally entered it in its first national Antique Automobile of America car show to take place in Lakeland, Florida, in February. Things are looking better at work with the Miami-Dade County Public Schools getting a number of important grants, including a $32 million program from Race To The Top for math preparation, and the District won the coveted Broad Prize for Urban Education this past fall. One of my short plays has been selected for production in May 2013 at the Lake Worth Playhouse’s Short Cuts series, and hope springs eternal for a full-scale production again of Can’t Live Without You here in Florida. This time I have a good director who would love to do it if we can get a theatre. I’ll be off to the William Inge Festival in May to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Inge’s birth, and plans are in the works for our annual trip to Stratford, Ontario, next summer. My family continues to enjoy good health and good spirits. The blessings continue. (PS: No, I still don’t have a Twitter account.)
- And of course, the usual prediction: One year from now I’ll write a post just like this one, look back at this one, and think, “Gee, that was dumb.” Or not.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is already making it clear that he’s planning on running for president in 2016. He’s already on the stump as one of the more attractive and less vitriolic of the party, and he’s got a really good business model already in place: after all, how unlikely is it that America will elect a first-term senator with a name ending in a vowel as president?
Jonathan Chait at New York magazine looks at the new model and finds that under the hood, though, it’s the same vehicle as the one they ran last year.
On the budget, Rubio delivered the Republican weekly radio address, and his message was more of the old-timey religion: We must get the national debt under control. Tax increases will not solve our $16 trillion debt. Only economic growth and a reform of entitlement programs will help control the debt.
This is the classic Republican metaphysical dodge, which not only argues for keeping taxes as low as possible but refuses to acknowledge that revenue bears any relationship at all to deficits. Deficits equal spending! Two legs bad, Reagan good!
On immigration, meanwhile, Rubio is carefully positioning himself to oppose any potential deal. He is not coming out and immediately throwing his body in front of the legislative train. Rather, he pleads that we must not try to do everything at once and should instead try to reform immigration “step by step.” Of course, “step by step” is exactly the catchphrase Republicans used to oppose health-care reform. It’s a way of associating yourself with the broadly popular goal of reform while giving yourself cover to oppose any particular bill that has a chance to pass. You’re not against reform, you’re against this reform. It’s too much, too fast.
The Republicans and Mr. Rubio seem convinced that it’s not what they say, it’s the way that they say it that is ruining their message and why they lost the election. And as long as they keep thinking that, they’ll keep losing.
Maybe Baby — Lauren Collins comments on where babies come from.
Ross Douthat’s column lamenting the declining American birthrate struck me as creepy when I read it, but I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps as a childless thirty-two-year-old woman—not only an evolutionary dead end, but also a moral zero, in Douthat’s eyes—I failed to produce a response, as I have failed to produce a baby, as result of “late-modern exhaustion—a decadence that first arose in the West but now haunts rich societies across the globe.” I wanted to tell Ross Douthat that there are many reasons that American women of my generation lag in both time and space, giving birth to fewer children than both our foremothers and our peers in countries such as France and the United Kingdom. Douthat is right that our government’s lack of interest in developing an infrastructure to help working mothers is a large part of the problem, if it is a problem. But so is the moralization of motherhood, which, as writers from Élisabeth Badinter to Pamela Druckerman and Katie Roiphe have recently pointed out, is rife in American society. As Badinter explains in “The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines Women,” people have more babies in France, where breast-feeding is a fifty-fifty proposition and ninety-nine per cent of young children are enrolled in free, state-run daycare, precisely because having a baby in France is not such a freighted ordeal. (By the way, Douthat’s notion that the declining birthrate is linked to “a broader cultural shift away from a child-centric understanding of romance and marriage” is undermined by the fertile, cohabiting French.)
That’s what I wanted to tell Ross Douthat, but I had just gone for a walk, sapping myself of energy that probably would have been better used in childbearing.
The next day, I read that the Duchess of Cambridge was expecting a child, and that she had been admitted to the hospital with hyperemesis gravidarum. She was very early in her pregnancy, and it felt invasive, hearing such intimate news. The way that commentators felt entitled to have an opinion about her womb, and the way they were rooting for her to reproduce, in the name of God and country, gave me a queasy feeling. Douthat wrote that a sagging population is the result of a society that “embraces the comforts and pleasures of modernity,” but might not women also be hesitating to have children, or struggling to find a way to do so, in a culture whose conception of family life is so primitive?
Carl Hiaasen has some advice for the GOP.
Based on the grim exit polls, you’d think Republican leaders would comprehend the futility of sucking up to the beet-faced Limbaugh fringe and pushing an agenda that most Americans viewed as extreme, exclusive and intrusive.
That tone had been set in the primaries by the lamest, flakiest set of candidates in modern memory. The only one who ever stood a chance was Romney, who veered so hard to the right that he couldn’t ever find his way back.
Want a sure-fire recipe for blowing another national election?
1. Keep badmouthing the poor, and bowing to the rich. This is an especially clever strategy while the country is clawing out of a recession.
2. To drive away as many women voters as possible, keep talking about banning abortions and cutting off funds for birth control.
3. Another brilliant campaign topic: Outlawing gay marriage. Keep that one on the front burner if you’re keen on alienating millions of highly motivated voters.
4. Don’t forget to bash big government every chance you get — just pray that a major hurricane doesn’t hit, and the whole country doesn’t get reminded of the importance of FEMA, the National Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and other tax-gobbling slackers.
5. Finally, keeping pushing for laws that would allow anyone who looks vaguely Hispanic to be pulled over in their cars and frisked for citizenship documents. This is how you keep your “base electorate” fired up, your base being angry, white, old and dwindling by the day.
Marco Rubio can’t avoid Iowa with its freakishly homogenous demographics (91 percent white), but he can certainly avoid coming off like a jabbering loon. He’s already separated himself from the likes of Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann by stating that he actually believes in science.
Now we’ll see if the GOP can evolve enough to let him lead the party out of its cave.
An Unexpected Party — Jon Michaud on why he thinks The Hobbit is a better book than its sequel.
With the imminent release of the first of Peter Jackson’s three-part adaptation of “The Hobbit,” I revisited J. R. R. Tolkien’s 1937 novel, which I had not opened since I was a teen-ager. Re-reading “The Hobbit” turned out to be something of a revelation. Formerly, I’d seen it as nothing more than an appetizer for the big feast of “The Lord of the Rings.” Now, I realized, it was a perfecly balanced meal of its own—one that left you feeling sated rather than gorged. A good case can be made that “The Hobbit” is a better and more satisfying read than its gargantuan successor. Herewith, some arguments in the little book’s favor:
1. Only one hobbit.
There’s a reason Tolkien begins both novels by getting his hobbit protagonists out of the Shire. Hobbits, though possessed of many admirable traits, can be kind of a drag, especially in large numbers. One is plenty. Four is too many. After twelve hundred pages of “The Lord of the Rings,” I’d had just about enough of the hobbits’ endless pining for home and their tiresome whingeing about not having a second breakfast. Particularly grating is Sam Gamgee, the loyal, kind-hearted servant who accompanies Frodo all the way to Mt. Doom—and insists on calling him “Mr. Frodo” the entire time. Mindlessly devoted and masochistically self-denying, he is held up as the truest expression of hobbithood. No thanks. I find Bilbo, the hero of the earlier book, a far more engaging character. While he does yearn for the comforts of the Shire during his journey to the Lonely Mountain, he is no straight arrow. He’s an opportunist, willing to fudge the rules when it suits him. He outwits Gollum with a not-quite-kosher riddle. He steals the Arkenstone from Smaug’s hoard and uses it as a bargaining chip; and he hides the magic ring from his companions as long as he can. Next time I re-read “The Lord of the Rings,” I am sure to ask myself, What would Bilbo do?
2. Lots of dwarves.
I propose a rule: the ratio of dwarves to hobbits is directly proportional to the quality of the tale. Wagner and Walt Disney understood this. Pompous and irritable, industrious yet bumbling, dwarves are much more enjoyable to read about than hobbits. Though motivated always by gold, they are makers as well as takers. Skilled blacksmiths, miners, and engineers, they are responsible for many of the wonders of Middle Earth. Moria is to a hobbit hole as the Pyramids are to a thatched-roof cottage. There is just one dwarf in “The Lord of the Rings”: Gimli. He is the son of Gloin, one of Bilbo’s companions in “The Hobbit.” (Gloin does make a brief appearance at the Council of Elrond, but that hardly counts.) Having one dwarf in your epic fantasy novel is like having one acrobat in a circus. You need a troupe! Poor Gimli is charged not only with protecting the ringbearer, but also with providing much of the comic relief in the trilogy. By contrast, “The Hobbit” features a dozen dwarves and is the richer for it. Who can’t sympathize with a group of grumpy, bearded refugees who have been evicted from their homeland by a greedy despot? The fact that they squabble, refuse to listen to directions, and end up starting a war only makes them more fun to read about.
Doonesbury — Then what?
Is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush looking into running for president in 2016? Does a goose go barefoot?
Via Kyle Munzenrieder at the Miami New Times Riptide blog:
Jeb Bush spent most of the past four years denying that he would run for president …in 2012. He literally never missed an opportunity to tell anyone who would listen in no uncertain terms that he would not be running, but when asked about 2016 he seems to have a change of tone. He told National Review this morning that he was meeting with a bunch of former staffers and consultants just steps from the White House and didn’t directly deny he’s mulling the idea of a 2016 run.
According to NRO, Bush assembled a bunch trusted former staffer at the J.W. Marriot Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just a short walk from the former home of his dad and brother.
Not only do I think it’s likely that he’ll run, I agree with BooMan: he could be a real contender.
It’s obviously not helpful to share a name with two former presidents, neither of whom who are remembered fondly. But the truth is that W. was an anomaly in the family. His father was an extraordinarily shady man with deep ties into the worst elements of our intelligence community. But he was also a competent president who ably managed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumbling of the Soviet Union. He was not a movement conservative or a neo-conservative or a paleoconservative. Of all the Republican presidents since Eisenhower, Poppy is the only one I would trust with our national security. That doesn’t mean I would like his foreign policy, but I’d trust that he wouldn’t get us all killed. The closest facsimile to Poppy is Jeb. He’s literally the only person on the right who could plausibly be a commander in chief in four years.
I would expect the base of the party to be very resistant to nominating Jeb, but they were very reluctant to nominate McCain and Romney, too. You can’t beat something with nothing. And if Jeb Bush has no stronger competition than Bobby Jindal and Rick Santorum, he’s a shoo-in to win the nomination.
Even in the eyes of Democrats here in Florida, Jeb Bush was not a disaster as governor. He was able to work with Democrats in the legislature when they still had some clout in Tallahassee. That could be a problem for the Tea Party; they’re on the record as not being wild about former governors that are willing to work across the aisle (see Romney, Mitt). And of course there’s also the other rising star from Florida who would love nothing better than to make his move in 2016. As Kyle notes, “Somewhere Marco Rubio is fidgeting nervously.”
Is it too early to cue up the Hillary machine?
Rick Santorum would like to try again:
“I’m open to it, yeah,” Santorum replied. “I think there’s a fight right now as to what the soul of the Republican party’s going to be and the conservative movement, and we have something to say about that. I think from our battle, we’re not going to leave the field.”
Aside from the fact that he’s been getting his talking points syntax from Yoda, he’s ready to do the Lord’s work. Which means we’re going to be hearing more about gay sex than if we were hanging out at a pool party in Key West.
HT to Melissa.
This quote from the junior Senator from Florida has been getting a lot of internet attention:
GQ: How old do you think the Earth is?
Marco Rubio: I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.
First, let’s clear up a few points. No, it’s not “one of the great mysteries,” nor is it a “dispute amongst theologians” as to how old the Earth is. Anyone who paid attention in high school science knows that evidence indicates the planet we live on formed about 4.54 billion years ago. It’s only a theological question if you are sitting around with a bunch of theologians discussing the various Creation myths that are part of every religion, including the one about the two naked people and the talking snake or the giant turtle carrying the world on its back. But even the theologians — at least the ones worthy of the title — will agree that their beliefs have no more to do with earth science than The Lord of the Rings has to do with metallurgy and [spoiler alert] whether or not you can save the world from evil by melting a piece of jewelry in a volcano.
Mr. Rubio’s dismissive “I’m not a scientist, man,” (which is sure to join the campaign lexicon along with “binders full of women” someday) and his attempt to pivot the question to things that he think are more important like GDP and economic growth tell us that he knows he shouldn’t wade into this swamp if he wants to keep the nutsery GOP base happy. But he can’t help himself from sticking his foot in it; by being dismissive he’s made it worse: everyone with more than a Grade 8 education and a middle school level of Sunday school knows how to separate fable from fact and that a potential presidential candidate who panders to the lowest common denominator needs to do his math homework.
The science that Mr. Rubio is concerned with isn’t that practiced by geologists. It’s the one practiced by Nate Silver.
